"Point, but I don't think backlash can get that bad? Even if people don't like me, unless they actually start believing I'm a sham they won't expect me to fail. I think. I mean, the approach is slightly different if there's literally no positive feedback from other people, I suppose, but the basic strategy of building a rep is sound."

"I have bot footage of Leviathan too, by the by, they're recording by default."

"Ooh, yes, that's good. Maybe I shouldn't release that as a first episode, though, could be something like a bonus one a couple of weeks away."

"Sure. Tune in next week for a shot of me nailing Leviathan with this awesome gun! Include still shot of gun."

They laugh. "Yeah. But in any case, we should test that. What kind of thing should I do?"

"With Windflower, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"You still don't have much teekay with objects you haven't conjured. But she's seen you move an object once, so she won't expect it to be impossible as a general rule. We can take a baseline, set her up in another room with a robot, and go from there with you and her having various sets of information."

"Okay, I'm liking that. And now I'm thinking that there's, like, some extent to which my power's restricted by my own subconscious expectations, even of stuff I'm not actually perceiving?"

"Oh?"

"Well, like, when I first made copy. They couldn't really see what I wasn't seeing until the ball you threw at their forehead" (air quotes) "'convinced my subconscious' that they should be able to. So there's some extent to which I'm limiting myself, which might... have some effect, here. Like, if I see non-imaginary teekay while Windflower's expecting that to happen, that might cause me to be able to do it even when there's no one else around, and it... wouldn't necessarily mean it was because of what Windflower was expecting? ...I kinda confused myself here."

"For the purposes of this experiment you are not going to know for sure what Windflower's expecting."

"Yeah, ignore my ramble."

"How much will it throw you off if you don't have video of the room where she is?"

"...some? I think the theme going on is that I need some kind of trustworthy feedback for when my power works, but I think a robot beeping around me when it does should be enough."

"Okay, because it could throw things off if you were lipreading Windflower or psyching yourself up too much looking at the setting, but we're checking variance from a baseline, not absolute ability."

"Mmhm. So, I have been so far unable to make a ping-pong ball that I didn't make float. Success would be me being able to remotely move it a bit?"

"I was thinking have you move it 'as fast as you can' and see if that's faster when Windflower expects it."

"Move stuff I can already move, then? Boots was pushing 90 and I could still keep up with him using my suit, I might break something if I send a ping-pong ball at a wall at my top speed, whatever it may be."

"Maybe we should run two iterations, one with a ping pong ball you made and one with one you didn't make. Not in that order. In case we don't get usable results from the thing you didn't make at all."

Nod. "So what will the actual experiments be, and what are our predictions?"

"I think under the circumstances I shouldn't tell you the entire experimental design, but I'll put Windflower with a robot and one real and one fake ping-pong ball in a room, tell her what she needs to hear, and have you try to move the balls under assorted conditions, with robots bleeping at you when you've succeeded."

Nod again. "Yeah, makes sense, and sounds fun!"

"I'll send her a message."

"Cool!" They twirl a bit in the air.